Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Pondering #2

While reading my Sitemeter statistics, it occurred to me that many readers find me while searching for information on Little Man, What Now?, The Artificial Silk Girl and Fabian, or their respective authors (Fallada, Keun and Kästner). Should I feel guilty that I do not devote much time analysing these three novels, the subjects of my thesis, on this blog space? Or should I remind these searchers that this blog is not a reliable secondary source, and if I had found a citation to this blog, in an undergrad bibliography, I would note that this is not a "scholarly secondary source"? And should I point said searchers toward some more reliable sources?

Excuse me for a moment while I address that group of my readers: Without having access to my sources, I can recommend that you look into Deborah Smail, for an analysis on all three. For Fallada, you should look into Geoff Wilkes (he has a book on the crisis novels of Hans Fallada) and Jenny Williams' More Lives Than One, an excellent biography of Fallada, in English. There was also a debate regarding Little Man and another of Fallada's books (Farmers, Functionaries and Fireworks is the English title) through the early-nineties editions of German Studies Review. It is much trickier to find English-language sources on Keun or Kästner, although the introductions of both books provide quite a good analysis, and for Keun you can't go wrong with looking up many of the writings of Katharina von Ankum. There is an especially good article comparing The Artificial Silk Girl with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes called "Material Girls," but I cannot remember the article.

That's all my brain holds right now, while figuring out housing and processing all these new things around me. (I have a tendency toward information overload when I'm travelling to new places: I come to the point where I can no longer process anything new, and become tired, forgetful, anxious and clingy. I think I'm headed in that direction. Or I'm just sleepy.)

One last note: there is a gross spider crawling all over the printer. And I hear that there is a rat problem in this city. I don't know what to think about that. No wait, I know exactly what to think of that.